Perfect Fracture
by disillusionsglow
Summary: The final battle is lost and devastated by Harry's death, Hermione gives up magic and the world she once called home.
1. A Perpetual Winter

Those two flashes of green will haunt her for the rest of her life. They will invade her dreams and make her sweat, much like they always did to him.

The lord falls before the boy but the boy falls all the same.

There's the initial shock of this can't be happening, no no no, this couldn't happen. Oh but it did.

A scream of protest rips itself from her throat and every cell in her body is on fire as she runs to him. No one else moves and it's just him and her, one alive and one dead.

She begs him to wake up, please please please, but his eyes don't flutter open and his chest doesn't rise. He's frozen like that forever, a perpetual winter.

Even though the bad guy is dead, he still won. Their hero is gone. The boy with courage in his heart and goodness in his blood is gone.

She keeps begging him, tears falling on his center, but he gives her a resounding decline with his stillness.

The boy who lived is now the boy who died.


	2. But Just As Fragile

The next day, caskets upon caskets line the Great Hall. The smell of flowers mixed with the heavy stench of grief and rose up through the flying buttresses.

Even though the day is bright and clear outside, the sun can do nothing to bring in joy.

Harry's casket rests at the front where Dumbledore used to stand and give his crazy speeches that ended in random words, where the students used to look for guidance and hope.

Ron and Hermione stand by him, ready to crumble as soon as someone counts to three and while everyone else wants to pay their respects, they leave the two alone because losing Harry feels like they lost their hearts.

Ron holds her up, tries to be strong because he is the man. But he's not as brave as Harry, not as fearless, but just as fragile.

Hermione is shaking, partly out of sadness and partly out of anger. She's angry at everything. At Voldemort for killing Harry, at Harry for dying, at Ron for not doing anything even though there was nothing he could've done, at herself for not being clever enough to think up a way to save him. At herself for her love not being enough to wake him up again. At herself for failing him.

She can barely remember what he looks like. She saw him yesterday and already his image is blurred in her mind. It's even more difficult to remember a time when he was truly happy, untroubled, young. She tries to hold onto his eyes-hair-smile but it's all just slipping away.

He was there yesterday. He was solid and warm yesterday. Today he's cold and gone.


	3. Hogwarts, A History

Now she's packing her things up, never to return. She can't wait to get out.

Hogwarts used to feel like a sanctuary with it's strong stone walls, winding staircases, and sky-kissing turrets. Now it's all closing in on her and she's a bit claustrophobic.

The red and gold tie is much too tight, suffocating her, and the heather gray skirt is much too long because what does she care if someone can see her kneecaps or not? She realizes how much she doesn't care about anything anymore.

As she shoves more things into her trunk, her hand grazes her wand. She wants to snap it in two, see the core explode, and render it useless. But she doesn't for a reason she doesn't know yet.

She wants to leave all her books there because she never wants to learn another single thing about this world. She flings _Hogwarts, A History_ across the room and when something falls out of it, she rushes over to scoop it up.

It's a note from Harry. She always loved the way his H's looked at the beginning of both their names, the weird little squiggle at the bottom of his g's and how sometimes he forgot to dot his i's.

_Hermione, things may get bad. They may get really bad. But even if something happens to me, know that I will always love you. Always yours, Harry. _

And then she shatters on the floor like she was a porcelain doll that a kid with a temper tantrum had thrown.


	4. She Knows Ron Loves Her

She and Ron sit in their own cabin on the train back to London. She stares out the window and watches the countryside go by, countryside that she hopes she would never see again. Ron stares at her.

"Are you sure about this?" he asks, trying desperately to convince her otherwise. "You're the best witch in our year."

"I don't care about magic, Ron," she says through clenched teeth. "Magic killed him, magic took him away. I never want to do a spell again. I never want to go back to that dreadful place again."

Ron sighs. "I miss him too, Hermione. He was my best friend. But look, we've got our whole futures ahead of us. Harry wouldn't—"

"Don't say his name," she cuts him off, tears welling up in her eyes.

Ron shakes his head in disbelief and rubs his hand over his face. "Where are you going to go?"

"Anywhere but here." She looks over at him in sympathy then. She knows Ron loves her. But she can't lie to him and say that everything was going to be okay. "I'm sorry, Ron. But I can't live in the world that took him away. When I step off this train and get into my parents' car, I'm never doing another spell."

"You're making a mistake," he tells her. "You can't run from this."

"Watch me," she challenges. No one should ever tell Hermione what she can and can't do.

"Hermione, please. What am I supposed to do without you?"

"I don't know. What am I supposed to do without him?"


	5. The Slow Way, The Hard Way

They reach Platform 9¾ and she wants to run to safety as soon as she can but she feels that she owes her remaining friend at least something for all his trouble.

Once off the train, with hundreds of people bustling and the steam billowing around them, she turns to him suddenly and presses a kiss to his lips.

It might be cruel to say goodbye this way but she can't think of anything else he would want and she never got him anything for Christmas that year anyway.

He watches her go with sad eyes, feels his curly-haired and smart as hell friend slip away from him and out of their world.

Her goodbye hangs on his mouth and he can't bear to wipe it away.

She jumps into her parents' car right out of Kings Cross and once she gets home, she buys a flight to America because there's no way she's going to Apparate there.

She wants to do things the slow way, the hard way. Except getting over that green-eyed boy; could that happen a little faster, please?

Mom and Dad never ask her what happened that year but they learn quickly enough not to mention Harry.

On her last night in England, she allows herself to sleep in the shirt she stole from his trunk, his scent overwhelming her and rocking her to dreamland.

She pretends that it's his arms instead of the fabric that's holding her close and keeping her safe. And just for that night, she lets herself believe it.


	6. Dozing on a Cumulus

The flight to La Guardia Airport is much too long. She's heard of the hustle and bustle of the city and she needs all the distractions she can get.

She sits in the window seat and looks at the clouds, thinking that she must be close to him now. Maybe if she looks hard enough, she could see him dozing on a cumulus or bouncing on a cirrus.

The Sandman comes and sprinkles sleep on her eyelids but her fear of making a scene forces her to stay awake. Her dreams are not suitable for public ears. Muggles are all blissfully ignorant of the horrors on the other side.

She turns her glance to the stunning sunlight and lets it hurt her eyes so that she can pretend she's crying from that instead.

The plane hits some turbulence and everything shakes and jingles and for a regretful moment, she wishes that it'll crash so that she can be an angel too.

But then the sunlight shines brighter through the window and she can feel the warmth on her body and it's like he's holding her hand.

_I'm with you._


	7. Green

She lands in the city and when she's outside, all she can see are the lights. Most people love them, she wagers. But there are too many lights, too many green ones especially. The color of his eyes and the color of the spell that took him away.

Her parents had made arrangements for her to stay in an apartment, with the first two months already paid off. A graduation/sympathy gift for her.

She slips into a cab and gives him the address, the first words she's spoken in nine hours. When it pulls up to her apartment, she drags her heavy luggage up the narrow stairs, determined not to _Wingar—_No, don't even think about the spell.

The apartment is so different from her dorm room and her room at home. There's hardly any furniture and all the walls are bare, but she doesn't care. She'll just sleep tonight and then go looking for a job. She's made changes on her resume to make herself look like a Muggle, but this may be harder than she thought.

It'll all be harder than she thought.

She makes her bed and lies in it. Directly out her window is a stoplight and every twenty seconds or so, the green comes back and fills her dark room. She turns away from it and squeezes her eyes shut.

Even though it's summer, she's freezing. Freezing and alone and her love is dead.


	8. In Someone's Eyes

She finally wanders outside again and lands a modeling agent before the week is out. In some people's eyes, she is beautiful. In someone's green eyes, she was immaculate.

The clothes they make her wear are odd and suddenly she finds herself pining for that itchy heather gray skirt. But decisions were made and besides, she burned that skirt.

The flashbulbs pop and all she can see are spots and stars. In the back of her mind, she knows the spell to get that same effect, but she presses her lips tighter together into a look of apathy so that she can hide her sadness.

A male model with a name she didn't catch and a face she doesn't care for sidles up to her because the photographer wants chemistry. She stares just above his eyes and imagines a lightning bolt scar—the mark of a hero, which this man most certainly is not.

He touches her arm and she flinches hard, then apologizes. _It's just a job. You wanted to move forward….Harry wouldn't mind. _

_Harry can't mind_, she snarls back to herself. _He's gone._

The other model asks her out for a drink and she knows that none of the bars in Manhattan serve butterbeer. But she says yes anyway because maybe what the Muggles have will make her forget.


End file.
